How We Make Parchment

Step 1: Get Skins

All of our hides come in raw from farms or slaughterhouses as byproducts of the meat and dairy industries. Whenever possible, we prefer to source locally.

Parchment is untanned animal hide that has been dried under tension. It makes an excellent writing surface and has been used for writing since long before the advent of paper. Many well-known historical documents are written on parchment — and some of those are reproduced by Pergamena. Parchment is more durable and long-lasting than paper, and the intrinsic uniqueness of each skin makes it a fascinating material for many applications.

At Pergamena, our production methods are based on years of research, in addition to an inherent talent for working with skins, and our own creative ingenuity. We are continually developing new ideas to create the most useful, highest quality product.

How We Make Leather

Step 1: Dehairing

As with parchment, leather starts out as raw skins that need to be cleaned up and dehaired using lime and water. Hides are processed in a large drum where liquids and chemicals can be switched out, rather than the skins themselves.

Step 2: Fleshing

Once the hides have had the hair removed, they are run through the fleshing machine to have the backs cleaned up, allowing the tanning process to penetrate more evenly.

Step 3: Tanning and Fatliquoring

After fleshing, the skins are thrown back in a drum to be tanned using chestnut extract. After a few hours, oils are reintroduced to the skins to make them stronger and more supple in a process called fatliquoring.

Step 4: Drying

After tanning, the skins are brought to the dry room where they are hung or toggled and heated to remove excess moisture and help fix the tannins and oils.

Step 5: Staking

The skins dry stiff and boardy, and so need to be softened. Staking is the process of mechanically loosening the fibers of a hide so it becomes soft and pliable.

Step 6: Dyeing

Tanned skins all have a natural color based on the type of tannins used. However, if any other color is desired, the leather is reprocessed in a mix of dye and oils to impart a range colors.

Step 7: Splitting and Finishing

Hides come out in a range of thicknesses - or weights - naturally. To even this out, they are run through a splitting machine that removes the back of the skin to a predetermined weight. Afterwards, hides can be left naked, or run through a multitude of other processes to be shined up, smoothed, or artificially charactered to anyone's specifications.

Step 8: Trimming

Whether finished or left unadulterated, skins are trimmed to remove uneven edges and toggling marks, and then stored in rolls.

People have been making and using leather since the dawn of civilization. In earlier times, leather figured prominently in developing technologies and mechanics. Since the creation of synthetic materials, leather is most often found in the aesthetic realms of fashion and bookbinding. Leather’s prized durability is a result of tanning, or the use of tannins, to alter the protein structure of a skin, which prevents it from being susceptible to bacteria and decay.

Richard E. Meyer & Sons proudly operates a complete tannery, using a traditional vegetable tannage. Not only is it environmentally safe, it also yields a distinctively supple leather, perfect for bookbinding, tooling, and gilding. The entire process takes about one month from raw hide to final trimming and measuring.

Summary Block

This is example content. Double-click here and select a page to feature its content.
Learn more.